Here is an interesting article discussing change of venue motions due to pre-trial publicity. According to the article, these requests, for a variety of reasons, are rarely granted by the judge at least in Milwaukee and the surrounding counties. In the few times that the motion is granted because of a tainted jury pool, the article explains the process by which the trial is moved.
Does Publicity Taint the Jury
In 2006 and 2007, it was hard to imagine there was anyone in northeastern Wisconsin who wasn't aware of charges against Steven Avery for killing Teresa Halbach. Print and electronic media, newspapers from Madison and St. Paul and the New York Times, the Associated Press and other outlets covered the story of the Mishicot man who had been released from prison after serving 18 years for a rape he didn't commit. He was now charged with killing a 25-year-old photographer who had gone to his family's auto junk yard to photograph a van Avery was selling.
And in 1991, it was hard to imagine anyone in Wisconsin, or much of the country, who didn't know about Jeffrey Dahmer, a Milwaukee man who admitted killing 17 boys between 1978 and his arrest in 1991.
Both high profile killers eventually were convicted by juries from their home counties — showing that a request for a change of venue in a homicide trial is often not granted (to continue reading go here).
